Page 21 of Misfit Monsters (Pack of Outcasts #1)

Periwinkle

A s the sky starts to darken with the end of our second day on the road, Jonah pulls the van onto the shoulder. I peer through the window across the rocky landscape with its cover of evergreens, waiting for Raze to arrive.

We’ve been winding through the back roads all day, periodically checking in with our best tracker. Raze has gamely followed the scent of the patchwork creature Mirage and I spotted last night, and we’ve stuck as close to him as we can within the van.

It takes several minutes for him to emerge from the shadows.

He gives his broad shoulders a shake, his impressive muscles rippling across his arms. “The trail just kept going to the northeast. I’ve passed a few other scents that have a similar quality, but they’re even older, so faint I’m not sure I could stay on them very far. ”

Jonah sighs and peers at the sky. “I don’t know how much point there is in continuing to follow even this creature. It might be roaming at random.”

“An excellent pep talk from the man in charge,” Hail drawls.

I jump in. “It was worth trying. We didn’t have any other new leads. But Jonah, you must need to rest after so much driving.” His fatigue trickles off him like a thin, salty soup.

Jonah shoots me a grateful smile. “I’m doing all right, but I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. We’d better find a place to camp out for the night and start tomorrow fresh.”

Mirage spins around and launches himself into a tight flip against the van’s inner wall. “Time to get out of this tin can!”

“Let me see where a good spot would be. We don’t want local police deciding we’re suspicious and interfering with our mission.”

Jonah consults his map and drives until we reach an overgrown lane that leads to a rusty gate. It looks like it’s been an eon or so since anyone’s opened it. The padlock securing the chain is more rust than metal.

I thought the basilisk shifter was loping alongside us, but there’s no sign of him. My forehead furrows. “What happened to Raze?”

As Hail hops out of the van, his voice takes on a disdainful note. “He’s probably off tearing the mortal wildlife into bloody pieces.”

Right. Raze needs to feed to keep up his energy—and he can’t absorb the nutrition he needs simply by hanging around beings with emotions.

My powers might be confusing, but they’re a lot more convenient.

I grab the camping stove and help Jonah set it up on a patch of gravel. By the time he’s cooked his canned dinner and eaten most of it, Raze still hasn’t returned.

Can I blame him if he’d rather not face Hail’s snarky remarks?

The thought that he thinks his team would be more cruel than welcoming sends a pang of sadness through me.

“I’m going to make sure Raze is okay,” I announce.

Hail snorts, which for once I can understand. Anything that could make Raze not-okay would pulverize me in an instant.

But that’s only when it comes to physical defense.

Jonah simply nods. “Stay on the alert for odd creatures. We don’t know when we might cross paths with another one that turns aggressive on a dime.”

I can’t follow scents the way Raze and Mirage can, but my emotional awareness gets more sensitive when I’m familiar with another being. Like recognizing a person when they’re too far away to see their face, just by the way they walk.

I clamber up a low slope dotted with lumps of granite, and an impression I know is Raze creeps into my mind. He’s sated and feeling both satisfied and a little ashamed of that.

The conflicted emotions make my heart hurt more.

I pick up my pace, hurrying through the brush as quickly as my short and unpredictably wobbly legs will safely take me. Falling on my head and needing him to come to my rescue isn’t the plan.

I can tell Raze has heard me coming before I see him. One crunch of a twig underfoot sets off a pepper-sharp twang of alarm that fades just as quickly.

He can probably smell that it’s me. I hope my scent is at least a little pleasing.

It would really suck if he’s smelling dead fish or gym socks whenever I’m around .

I’ve only made it a short distance farther before the basilisk shifter comes to me. He marches between the trees and stops when we’re in view of each other.

His voice still has a hint of a growl, but it’s mostly confused. “What are you doing, Periwinkle?”

I smile at him. “Looking for you. It didn’t seem fair, after all the work you’ve done on your own today, that you’d have to spend the whole night alone too.”

His expression stays puzzled, his stance rigid. “I’m fine on my own. I prefer it.”

I tip my head to the side. I’m picking up frustration and defiance but also a whiff of longing. Definitely nothing that feels content.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s true, not completely. I don’t have to even talk if you don’t want me to. What if I just sit with you and we can see if that’s better than staying by yourself?”

Raze scowls, but something softens in his eyes at the same time. “Well, come on then, Glowbug.”

Despite his grumpy tone, something lights up inside me at the nickname. It sounds more fond than dismissive. As if he likes the fact that I glow, just like Mirage suggested he appreciates my rainbow of colors.

It’d be nice if my mood-ring tendencies came with a few benefits.

The basilisk shifter tramps back across the slope, and I hustle behind him. He glances back to check on me just as a spike of pain radiates up one ankle.

I stumble. Raze is there unexpectedly fast, grasping my elbow to steady me.

He peers at me with sudden solemnness. “You’re not clumsy. You’ve been injured.”

Darn those predator instincts .

An uneasy flush spreads under my skin. I force another smile. “It was a long time ago. No big deal. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I don’t want to dredge up those awful memories.

Raze’s thumb skims over my arm in a gentle arc. He echoes what I said to him just minutes ago: “I don’t think that’s true.”

My throat tightens up. He’s the only one who’s ever noticed.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to bawl all over him. I shrug with a light laugh. “I had a bad run-in with a cruel human. He hurt me, and some of the wounds left lingering effects. It was a good lesson in what to watch out for. And in getting creative about staying on my feet. I learned a lot!”

Raze doesn’t look impressed by my studiousness. His lips draw back from his teeth, which extend into the razor sharp edges that come with his basilisk form. “What man? Where is he now?”

I can only answer honestly. “I don’t know. I’d rather think about the much nicer people I can hang out with. All right?”

Raze expels a growl followed by a long, slow breath. Then, before I have time to react, he scoops me up into his arms as if I weigh no more than a feather pillow.

Tucking me against his broad chest, he strides onward.

The feel of his sculpted, heated muscles against my side sends all sorts of tingles through my body. Not the effect I’d imagine he intended to provoke. A flare of need sparks between my legs.

The few times I dabbled in physical merging in the past, I didn’t really know those other shadowkind. Just a quick romp with someone who caught my eye and had the same impulse.

How much better might it be with someone I’ve come to care for? Who cares about me ?

Could that be the missing ingredient that makes humans jump on each other so avidly?

I shouldn’t let my mind wander in that direction. Raze is only stopping me from slowing him down, not propositioning me.

“It’s okay,” I protest. “I don’t mind walking.”

He lets out a decisive huff. “ I mind.”

Something inside me wilts despite my best efforts. “I’m sorry I’m slow. I?—”

Raze stops and gazes down at me, his mouth gone taut. “No. I mind you hurting when you’re only trying to help me.”

Oh. I stare back at him for a thump of my heart. He starts walking again, and I let myself relax in his careful embrace.

He doesn’t go much farther, just to a small clearing where a ridge of protruding rock sticks out like a bench. Raze lowers me gingerly onto one end and then sits down at the other, a few feet away. As if he assumes I wouldn’t want him any closer than that.

He might have good predatory instincts, but his attraction radar is way off.

Or maybe he has picked up on my reactions and he’s trying to discourage me because I’m not his type?

I push those muddled thoughts out of my head and focus on the man sitting next to me. I came here for his benefit, not my own.

Since I promised him he didn’t have to talk to me, I peer through the forest into the thickening dusk.

The crickets are out again, chirping away like birds of the night, and a half-full moon has risen to cast its silvery light over us.

The breeze licks through my hair, cool but not uncomfortably cold.

Raze speaks without warning, his voice low and a little hoarse. “You’re always so… nice to me. ”

I glance over at him with another twinge through my heart. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

He’s looking at the ground rather than at me, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “I wasn’t very kind to you when you first came into the dorm.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. I could tell you weren’t actually angry at me. You didn’t mean me any harm.”

A choked sound lurches out of him. “I never mean any harm. It just… happens. You don’t know how many people I’ve hurt, how many beings… If I don’t stay totally in control, my powers can spill right out of me.”

My stomach knots. “I know how that feels.”

Raze shakes his head. “It can’t be the same. I’m a basilisk. I put on contacts to act as shields, but if I get upset, my true eyes can sear through them—and kill anything I look at. Poison seeps right out of my skin. Everything I see, everything I touch…”

He glares down at his hands. “I didn’t want anything like that to happen to you. I want it even less now that I know how sweet you are.”

He called me sweet. My pulse flutters despite the grimness of the rest of his words.

I scoot a little closer. “You’ve never hurt me at all. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be. Everyone else is. Everyone knows what can happen if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I dare to push myself even closer and set my hand on his arm. He twitches at the contact but doesn’t pull away.

“You carried me,” I point out. “Nothing bad happened.”

“I made sure I was totally calm and that there was nothing around that would startle me. And it was only for a few minutes. It was better than leaving you in pain.”

I trace the bulges of his muscles, unable to resist my fascination with his powerful body. At my touch, a quiver of emotion races into my veins from Raze, hot and heady as pecan pie straight out of the oven.

That definitely doesn’t feel like disinterest. I think he’s still trying to protect me—from himself.

I tip my head to gaze up at him. “You know, you didn’t just save me from pain. Having you hold me like that felt good .”

Raze gapes down at me as if he can’t believe what I just said, but a starker rush of his desire washes over me.

I take the chance and bob up on my knees so I can press my lips to his.

Raze’s chest hitches, and then he’s clutching me to him, his fingers twining with my hair, his mouth scorching as it devours mine. Every inch of my body blazes with a joyful glow.

Some of it tingles from my scalp into my hair. After a moment, a pinkish haze seeps through my closed eyelids.

Raze will be able to see it too. Know how happy he’s making me. How much I want this.

No shame prickles through me with that knowledge. All I can do is keep kissing him with all my eagerness, my pulse skipping giddily.

This incredible man, so compassionate and selfless. He’s been so very lonely. I can taste it on him.

But I light him up too. I’ve proven that not everyone will want to run away from him.

Raze’s lips crash against mine once more. The kiss has barely begun before he wrenches himself backward.

“It’s not you,” he rasps hastily. “That was— I wanted it. More than I should have. We shouldn’t do that again. If I get caught up, I can’t make sure you stay safe.”

I can see we still have a long way to go .

I give his arm a gentle poke. “What if I’d rather have this deliciousness than safety?”

Raze lets out a strangled groan. “Peri…”

“All right, all right.” I beam up at him. “Come back to the van with me then. Everyone will want to see that you’re okay. You can keep me safe even while I sleep.”